Worldcon Is Gateway to Big Time

Mark Baard
09.09.04

The Hugo Awards in 2003: Authors Neil Gaiman, left, with his Hugo Award for his novella, Coraline, and Isaac Szpindel, who won Canada's Prix Aurora Award in 2000. Coraline was a New York Times best seller, and is being adapted for the screen.

BOSTON -- Nick Sagan was standing in a hallway at the 62nd annual World Science Fiction Convention last week in Boston, flipping through a copy of Entertainment Weekly that included a review of his latest novel.

"They gave me a 'B,' which I guess isn't so bad," said Sagan of the graded review.

Sagan, who has written several episodes of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager, was in town to sign copies of his book, Edenborn, and to meet with sci-fi fans, some of whom wore Star Fleet uniforms tight enough to make even William Shatner blush.

Between 5,000 and 6,000 people attended the Boston event, according to many estimates. The crowd was markedly older and less flamboyant than in years past, said Paul O'Brien, a sci-fi historian and a visiting lecturer at Boston College.

"Attendees overall were once much younger," said O'Brien, referring to past World Science Fiction Conventions in Boston. "And a third of them wore costumes inspired by their favorite films, comics and TV shows."

But the annual convention, called Worldcon for short, is still the place where sci-fi and fantasy fans help choose the winners of the Hugo Awards, considered by many to be the genre's highest honor. The awards, although little-known outside the world of fandom, have helped propel authors into lucrative movie contracts and mainstream book-publishing deals.

Nick Sagan was not up for a Hugo Award this year. But he is one of many sci-fi authors getting a shot at the mainstream, thanks to the box office success of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and other blockbuster movie franchises.

"Many people don't want to call themselves science-fiction fans, because of the stigma of being seen as a nerd," said Sagan. "But just ask anyone what their favorite film is, and a lot of them will say Star Wars or The Matrix."

Mainstream reviewers can be tough on genre writers, however.

The New York Times' review of Edenborn, which made much of Sagan's connection to his father, the late astronomer Carl Sagan, was more critical of the book than was Entertainment Weekly.

"There is a part of me that wants everybody to like the book," said Sagan.

Sagan was talking with Isaac Szpindel, a Canadian science-fiction author and screenwriter. The two had just led a panel discussion at the convention about breaking into the sci-fi writing business.

Szpindel picked up on Sagan's disappointment with the review of Edenborn in the Times.

"Are you kidding me? I'd love to be shredded by the Times," Szpindel said.

"No one wants to be shredded by the Times of course," Szpindel said later. "But for a genre author to be reviewed in a publication like the New York Times Book Review -- that does lend him some recognition, attention and legitimacy. It's better to be noticed than to be ignored."

The Times review caused Edenborn's sales at Amazon.com to spike this past weekend, Sagan said.

Of course, a Hugo Award, or two, or three, can also help an author's career.

Neil Gaiman, who won his third Hugo this year for his short story, "A Study in Emerald," said his Hugo Award-winning and New York Times best-selling children's novel, Coraline, is being made into a motion picture. Coraline will be directed by Henry Selick, who directed Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Gaiman, who started as the author of the Sandman comic book series, insists he will remain true to his roots in the sci-fi and fantasy genre, despite his growing reputation in the mainstream.

"There is a long tradition of the science-fiction author disowning his roots when he becomes a popular success," said Gaiman.

Gaiman suggested that his early, hard-bitten experiences in the comic book business are a source of his dark artistic vision.

"I come from comic books," said Gaiman. "If sci-fi is the gutter of literature, comics are the place that the gutter flows into."